266 | Powerful Reading Comprehension Strategy: Make a Movie In Your Head (Dianne Craft)

One of the most puzzling situations a mother finds herself in is when she has a child who can read the words in a book but cannot answer the questions or tell her what has just been read.   These moms frequently hear the phrase, “I don’t remember,” when queried about the reading material.

When working with bright, hardworking 4th through 8th graders in my reading class,  I realized that these students were not proficient at converting the words they were reading into a “movie” in their head, as the rest of us do when we read.  They were merely doing “word calling” much of the time.  I found that “movie making” was a skill that could be developed in them, using an easy fifteen-minute a day exercise.  This exercise did not involve paper or pencil, but only the use of their brain.  “Word calling” is a left-brain auditory task, while creating a picture or movie of those words is the responsibility of the right brain hemisphere.  I merely showed them how to create a seamless flow of words to pictures as they were reading.  You can do this at home, very easily.